Glassboro couple awaits word on Haiti adoption

Friday, January 22, 2010

By Jessica Beym

jbeym@sjnewsco.com

The phone call could come any day now.

When it does, it will be the call John and Gina Kulikowski
have been waiting for since the U.S government announced
Monday it was speeding up the adoption process in Haiti
after last week's devastating earthquake.

The Glassboro family has only been in the adoption process
for about one year Ð far less time than many other couples,
including Josh and Kate Mularski of Washington Township, who
have been going through the same arduous steps for the past
four years.

But the end result will be just as rewarding Ð the number of
children the Kulikowskis have will double as Haitian natives
Daana, 11, Claudia, 9, and Samentha, 7 become sisters of
Mary, 15, Elizabeth, 14, and Ashley, 12.

Kulikowski said he and his wife have always talked about
adoption.

"We wanted to make sure we adopted the kids God wanted
us to adopt," he said. "Gina always said, ÔGod
has to put them on my lap.'"

Years later, He did.

The couple's oldest daughter, Mary, told her parents in
2008 that all she wanted for Christmas was money to go on
one of the mission trips to Haiti, organized by their
church, St. John's United Methodist Church on Ganttown
Road. Josh Mularski, a youth pastor there, and his wife
Kate, had been attending the missions multiple times a year
for the past few years.

The Kulikowskis agreed Mary could go on an upcoming trip in
February 2009 but her mother Gina would come as well. John
stayed home with their two other daughters.

"They were busy all week working," John recalled,
explaining how the mission trips involved bringing food out
to remote, poor areas, and working at the Greater Works Home
For Girls orphanage in Delmas, Haiti.

"But when Mary and Gina left Haiti they were an emotional wreck," he said. They had met and fallen in love with three special girls at the orphanage: Daana, Claudia, and Samentha....